A Bad Day in California

The Culture of Death Marches On

David C. Stolinsky, MD
June 19, 2008

On June 15, two distressing stories broke. The first involved a man who stopped his truck on a road, put a one- or two-year-old boy on the ground, then beat and kicked the child. Passersby tried to stop him − apparently not very vigorously − but he responded, “It’s just trash.” Police arrived, ordered man to stop, and when he did not, shot him to death, thus saving us the trouble of trying to invent excuses for his behavior. The child died in the hospital. Identification will require DNA, because the body is unrecognizable. If the passersby had been legally armed, they might have intervened effectively.

The second story was, if possible, even more distressing. A Los Angeles mother and her live-in girlfriend were arrested for the prolonged torture of her five-year-old son, including burning his hands on a stove and burning his body and genitals with cigarettes. The boy will require surgery to regain use of his hands, if he survives.

It is unwise to draw sweeping conclusions from isolated events. But it is just as unwise, and more dangerous, to refuse to draw conclusions from a series of connected events. The trick is to recognize that they are connected.

We blame our intelligence agencies for failing to “connect the dots” before 9/11. But are we not doing the same thing? Are we not failing to “connect the dots” of a pervasive culture of death and disrespect for human life, especially the very young, the disabled or the elderly? Of course, to “connect the dots,” first we need to recognize that they are dots, and then we need the will to connect them. I believe we are failing on both counts.

A Google search for “baby+Dumpster” yields 2,010,000 hits, but “baby+carriage” yields only 1,590,000 hits. Do you really believe it is insignificant that − on the Internet, at least − the idea of a baby in a trash container is more common than the idea of a baby in a baby carriage?

Are we honest enough to admit that there might − just possibly − be a connection between the recent instances of horrible child abuse and infanticide, and our pervasive disrespect for very young life? Or will we doze off, munching snacks and watching mindless “reality” shows on TV, while we ignore the real reality that our news media report daily?

In some high schools, boys and girls are given baby dolls to take home and “care for.” The dolls cry and need to be picked up, fed or changed to stop crying. The idea is to teach kids that babies are a heavy responsibility, so that unwanted pregnancies will be avoided. But the more likely effect may be to teach kids that babies can be a real pain − and thus to evoke annoyance and contempt rather than caring and respect. The man who beat the child to death at the roadside said, “Look how they make toys now.” He saw the child as an annoying, defective thing − a possession that he could destroy if he no longer wanted it.

Next, kids are taught that science “proves” that humans are just evolved animals. But science can say this only insofar as our physical development is concerned. Science has nothing to say about our spiritual or moral development. But if kids are taught that we are nothing but animals, why are we surprised when some of them grow up to act like beasts? We gave them nothing higher to aim for.

And then, kids are exposed to frequent news about abortion, even late-term abortion, clearly after the age of viability has arrived. But what if a late-term abortion delivers a living baby? Barack Obama, who may very well be our next President, has a solution to this “problem.” As a state senator, he voted against a bill that would have required medical care for such babies − that is, he voted to kill them.

The theory is that a fetus − incidentally, that’s Latin for “offspring,” not for “trash” − is part of the mother’s body, to do with as she pleases. Of course, even middle-school students know that a fetus is a unique individual with unique DNA, but learned judges pretend not to know. However, this theory has now been extended to mean that the baby is still the mother’s property, even after birth. So if she wanted an abortion, the doctors and nurses should just kill the newborn.

Lest you think that this inhuman idea is limited to human babies, let me remind you of Knut the polar bear cub. His mother abandoned him at birth. Zoo personnel cared for the lovable ball of fluff, but “animal-rights” activists wanted him dead. Their expressed reason was that if he were raised by humans, he would be a “dysfunctional” bear. But the subtext was that he was still his mother’s property, so if she abandoned him to die, her desire should be respected. If you ever doubt that there is a growing culture of death, just remember Knut. He is now a big, strong polar bear, no thanks to “animal-rights” activists, who turned out to be lovers of death, not life.

First they came for early fetuses, then late-term fetuses, then unwanted newborns, then the incurably ill. But who’s next? The mentally ill? The autistic? The elderly? The disabled? If Knut isn’t a “real” bear, and Terri Schiavo wasn’t a “real” person, how, precisely, does this differ from the Nazi notion of “life unworthy of life”? When liberals start talking like Nazis, we’re in deep trouble.

But it’s not just the very young, the very old, or the severely disabled who are in danger. Now we all are. So-called “deep” ecologists tell us that to “save the planet,” we must markedly reduce the human population. How this is to be accomplished is left to our imaginations. And in a recent tape, Bin Laden condemned the West for causing global warming. When environmentalists start talking like terrorists, we’re in really deep trouble.

Now this way of thinking is becoming mainstream. For example, take the recent film “The Happening.” In this forgettable movie, we are attacked by a strange force that impels millions of people to kill themselves. It seems that plants sense that we are endangering the planet, so they give off toxins that solve the problem.

This film is but one example of our regression to paganism, specifically Germanic paganism, in which trees were objects of worship. And yet again, we are taught disrespect for human life. If markedly reducing the human population will “save the planet,” was Hitler the greatest environmentalist? After all, he invented the Final Solution to the population problem.

So what do we expect? We immerse young people in the idea that human life isn’t sacred − in fact, it isn’t even desirable. We teach young people that an unborn child is the mother’s property, to do with as she pleases. Even a newborn child is, to some liberals, of questionable worth. And liberals support Barack Obama, who declares that if his daughter had an unwanted pregnancy, he wouldn’t want her to be “punished with a baby.” If our leaders see a baby as punishment, how do we imagine less educated, less affluent people will act if a baby annoys them?

And yet, somehow, we expect young people, and not-so-young people, to make a sudden, 180-degree reversal, and see babies and children as precious. Usually, our natural, human emotions prevail, and the child receives loving care. But sometimes, the lessons we teach are learned only too well. And the result is that babies are beaten to death, children are tortured without mercy, and Google connects “baby” with “Dumpster” more often that with “baby carriage.”

It was a bad day in California. But it was a wake-up call for all of us.

Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. He can be contacted at dstol@prodigy.net.

www.stolinsky.com